This will be one of our most attended webinars, and there is still time to sign up. The webinar will cover legal issues facing California employers under the new Labor Code section prohibiting employers from asking applicants and employees for social media passwords, privacy issues when conducting background checks, alternatives to social media policies, and when policies addressing these issues are necessary. It is taking place at 10:00 a.m. PST January 15. Visit our website for registration information.

California passed a new law taking effect January 1, 2013 that prohibits employers from “requiring or requesting” employees and applicants to provide their passwords to social media accounts. This law was passed after a few cases made the news where employers were actually asking for this information. As I argued before, this law was probably not necessary as California law probably already prohibited this type of conduct to begin with.

However, now that the law is taking effect, there are also new questions that employers are facing under the law. For example, if an employer has the right policies in place that limit an employee’s expectation of privacy, it is pretty well established that the employer may monitor the employee’s internet use and record this. However, under the new law, what if an employee accesses their social media accounts during work? Or on a break? Can employers still monitor employees and record the employee’s login and password information?

I would argue that employers can still monitor employees’ internet use as long as they have made the proper disclosures through a handbook or policies that limit the employees’ expectation of privacy in using the company network or computers. The new law only prohibits employers from requiring employees to divulge their passwords. If the employer notifies the employees that it is recording all activity by the employees on the company network or computers, then the employees have made a voluntary decision to continue to access their account knowing that their employer is monitoring and/or recording the activity. Granted, the law is just going into effect next week, so obviously there is no case law to rely upon in making this argument, so employer will have to wait to see how the law is ultimately interpreted by the courts.

There was a good reminder to everyone over Christmas about online “privacy.” Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of her and her family on FB, and it was shared by another person on twitter. The photo was one of the Zuckerberg family using Facebook’s new Poke functionality (which by the way, is a way to send pictures through Facebook that are deleted from the recipient’s machine after a set period of time). A third party posted Randi’s photo online, and Randi’s apparently did not like the fact that the photo was reposted. Randi did not know how the third party got a copy of the picture, but it became apparent that the third party was connect to Randi through a mutual friend and saw the picture posted in her newsfeed. After the issue of how the picture was shared and it was not the result of some underhanded means to gain access to the picture, Randi still commented that people should “always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly.”

Anthony Zaller is a litigation attorney who focuses on California labor and employment law matters and has extensive experience in litigating class action and single plaintiff lawsuits. He resides in Los Angeles, and litigates cases throughout California. In addition to...More...